Holtec International was in the news last month when the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission denied requests from some groups to hold an additional hearing over the company’s license to build an interim storage site in southeastern New Mexico to hold nuclear waste from commercial power plants.

Laura Paskus has been writing about New Mexico’s natural resources and communities since 2002, as an assistant editor of High Country News, a radio producer at KUNM-FM, managing editor of Tribal College Journal and a freelancer for a variety of publications including the Santa Fe Reporter, New Mexico In Depth and Indian Country Today. Her work has also appeared in Al Jazeera America, Ms. Magazine, National Geographic Online, The Nature Conservancy Magazine, The Progressive, Columbia Journalism Review, The Mountain Gazette, Audubon and Orion. She's a correspondent for New Mexico In Focus and a graduate student in the University of New Mexico’s Geography and Environmental Studies Department.